


the fault is not in our stars

by eena



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 08:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eena/pseuds/eena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="http://ishi-chan.livejournal.com/92524.html">Ficathon</a>
</p>
<p> Response:  Erica/Isaac <i>You know all the tricks, come get your kicks, you know I'm game</i>.  Set in between 2.07 and 2.08.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fault is not in our stars

A week away from the full moon, and Isaac doesn’t sleep.

 

She knows it without having to confirm it, can see it in the shadows under his eyes and the sometimes antagonistic curl to his lips. Isaac only really acts like a first-class douchebag when he’s cranky and trying to hide it.

 

Derek doesn’t notice; he’s too busy with the kanima and Jackson and Scott and a whole other list of things that aren’t Isaac. It’s not to be mean, but it’s to be honest. Erica adores Derek, downright loves him, and is perfectly willing to put herself on the line if he told her to. But she’s not going to lie and say he has all the answers. What Derek has is an available list of readied answers, but sometimes he just fails to understand the question.

 

And Isaac? Well, Isaac’s had enough of tears and fears and being smaller to avoid being hurt. He’s much more up front and in your face these days, but he doesn’t seem to understand. Puffing out your chest and growling is just another cover-up. It may be louder and slightly more impressive than curling up into a ball until danger passes, but it’s still an attempt to avoid being hurt.

 

So if Scott speeds to her at lunch time, looking harassed and put out and scandalized and a dozen other things, she can sort of guess why. And she’s already kind of laughing because Scott’s newfound pack status has seriously altered the quality of their interactions, with him being entirely more insistent and maternal than a sixteen year old boy should be.

 

“Isaac’s gone crazy,” and at this point it’s kind of like Scott’s new way of saying hello. Stiles is already sliding into the seat next to her and eying the fries on Boyd’s plate with devious intent. Boyd makes sure never to look the other boy’s way while picking up his fork and stabbing at his fries with more force than necessary. Scott sees all this and his eyebrows crash together in instantaneous indignation because can’t they see he’s just trying to help?

 

“He picked a fight with the football team,” Scott collapses into a chair across from the three of them and gives them all his earnest-puppy-needs-to-pee look. “The entire football team.”

 

Boyd lifts an eyebrow. “That is insane.”

 

“Yeah,” Stiles is now trying to give Erica Bambi eyes for the brownie on the corner of her tray. “Who even knew that we had a football team at this school?”

 

Scott looks so shattered at his best friend’s flippancy and denial of the absolute importance of the situation that Erica actually feels sorry for him. Kind of. “Stop making that face, Scott. Just looking at you makes me want to cry.”

 

“I’ll stop making this face when I stop catching Isaac trying to disembowel our classmates every time I turn a corner.”

 

And therein lies the rub, or something. Whatever, Scott makes a good point and with all the Argents littering this campus, Isaac acting out like a five-year-old in full tantrum-mode is probably not going to make Derek happy. And Isaac probably couldn’t handle making Derek not happy. 

 

(Isaac can’t handle making anyone not happy-but his need for approval is so closely linked to his desire to avoid pain that it just jumbles him all up to the point where someone’s probably going to get hurt).

 

She drops her fork, pushes her tray just a bit towards Stiles. “I’ll take care of it,” is her promise, and Scott looks relieved and Boyd uninterested and Stiles already has chocolate smeared on his lips. She swipes a thumb across his lips, grins just wide enough for him to see her canines before sucking the chocolate off her thumb with an audible pop. Stiles goes still, eyes wide and chest fluttering with ragged breaths, and she winks at Scott’s disapproval before heading for the doors.

 

It doesn’t take long to find Isaac; he’s in the boys’ locker room, dangling Greenberg upside down by his ankle, and snarling something about the unspoken ‘averted eyes’ rule.

 

“Oh wow, you really have unhinged.”

 

Erica manages not to wince at the sound of Greenberg’s head meeting the floor, does her best to look unimpressed while Isaac tries out his new Derek-smirk for her. “McCall’s been tattling again, I see.”

 

She’s not going to do this with him, as obviously as he wants her to. She raps her knuckles on the door and motions to the exit with a tilt of her head. “Let’s go.”

 

“Classes?” and like it matters because he’s already grabbing his things.

 

She rolls her eyes and slinks out the door, smirking to herself when she hears him running to catch up. She glances up once at the cameras on their way out the door, fights the urge to smile wide for the Argents. Derek has this thing about riling up the hunters, like he thinks it’s not a good idea or something. Erica understands why that is, but it doesn’t mean the urge to play isn’t there.

 

Isaac is right at her heels, she can feel his fingers brushing the back of her hands as she swings her arms back and forth. She does smile at that, likes how no matter what Isaac is always looking for her hand to hold. It’s kind of sweet, and kind of comforting. Not that she’d tell him that; the boy might get ideas.

 

She leads him out of the school, away from the campus and away from Derek. She marches him right to the woods, stops here and there examining her options before she picks a tree. She turns to him finally, offers a smile that is part inviting, part teasing. “This one.”

 

That he’s confused is obvious. “This one what?”

 

She just nods at the tree, “Come on, let’s go,” and then she’s jumping for the lowest branch and swinging herself up.

 

“We ditched school to climb a tree?” Isaac, once again, is right behind her, tone disgruntled and she wants to laugh because it doesn’t even matter because he still follows. He’s always going to follow. “Any particular reason why?”

 

“Because,” she hops onto a thicker branch, near the top and sits to wait for him.

 

“Because what?”

 

“Because there’s no one to tell us not to.”

 

And it’s true, for the first time in probably both their lives. No epilepsy and frantic parents tailing behind her, saying ‘no, not this one sweetie’ or ‘maybe when you’re older’ or ‘it’s not worth the risk, Erica’. No father looming in his shadows, one hand curled into a fist already and the other beckoning the boy with a ‘what did I tell you?’ and a ‘what did I do to deserve a screw-up like you?’

 

A few minutes pass, a few minutes of silence. She closes her eyes and smiles when she hears the wind skittering through the trees. She can feel him watching, feels the press on his eyes on her like a physical touch. She asked Derek once, in private of course, what this meant. What caused this hyper-awareness of Isaac on her part? It wasn’t just pack; she didn’t feel it with Boyd or even Derek the way she felt it with Isaac. And Scott, well, the most she feels towards him is amusement and disbelief (Stiles really must be Batman, she theorizes, to have kept Scott alive through all this).

 

Isaac is different; like an extension of her, but not. He’s his own person and she’s her own person too; but there’s something in the sameness of them that crackles across her skin almost all the time.

 

Derek, at that time, had just laughed and said, ‘when you’re older’. And she kind of loves Derek, she does, but he does creepy and cryptic like no one in real life should and sometimes she wonders if he would kill her for boinking him across the head with one his chains because he just _doesn’t understand the most basic things about his pack_.

 

 

“I know why he has to do it.”

 

And she doesn’t open her eyes, because he’s not done yet.

 

“I know, because I remember looking at Stilinski like he was food. I remember wanting to kill him just for being in my line of sight. I get it.”

 

“You just don’t want it, and you don’t know how to say it.”

 

His hand finally finds hers, and she lets him entwine their fingers together. She’s already moving when he tugs her to him, rests her back against his chest and settles her head just in the crook of his neck. She doesn’t open her eyes, not even when he presses his nose against her hair and inhales deep.

 

“This is harder than I thought it would be.”

 

She hums, takes his hand and rests it on her hip. “But it’s easier than it has to be.”

 

And they stay like that, because they can, because no one can tell them not to, for just as long as Isaac needs them to stay like that. When the sun is dipping low and school’s been out for hours, and Scott has called like ten times, Stiles five times, and Boyd sent one text threatening them for leaving him with those two, they jump back to the ground, because they’re not breakable anymore.

 

She brushes the dirt and the leaves off her clothes. “No fights at school.”

 

And it’s not an order, it’s not even a request. It just is.

 

He nods, begrudgingly, and tries to flash her that ladykiller smile he’s been working on in the mirror. “Yeah, okay.”

 

(And Derek just smirks when she creeps back into the rail car in the middle of the night to check on Isaac; just smirks and says nothing when she crawls into the space between his body and the wall. Seriously, doesn’t even wish them a good night before heading off to his own bed and if she didn’t love him, she’s pretty sure she would hate him, and then she laughs because in all honesty, she already does both).

 

~0~


End file.
